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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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CENTENNIAL ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE CITIZENS OF WOODSTOCK, VT., AND VICINITY, 



Wtfc of luJij, 1876 



CHARLES P. MARSH. 




Beach, Barnard * Co., Printers, 98 Randolph Street, Chicago, Ills. 



ORATION 



Mr. President, and Fellow Citizens : 

It needed not a resolution of Congress, nor the recom- 
mendation of the President of the nation, as a stimulant 
to the people of the United States to celebrate in a be- 
coming manner, this, the centennial birth-day of Ameri- 
can Independence. Never before, since the birth-day of 
the Republic, have so many cannon sent forth their peals 
of rejoicing, and the bells from so many towers rang 
forth their merry notes of welcome, as ushered in the 
sunrise of this natal day of American freedom. 

It is fit and proper that it should be thus. It is but the ful- 
fillment of the elder Adams' prediction ; for one hundred 
years ago this day, writing from Philadelphia, he says, 
" Let the day henceforth be celebrated with guns and 
bells — with bonfires and illuminations, from this time 
forward forever." This was the outburst of the enthusiasm 
consequent on the announcement, that the Declaration 
of Independence had been adopted and signed by the 
representatives of the united colonies in general congress 
assembled. 

This Declaration, which made us a free people and an 
Independent Nation, was everywhere hailed then 
throughout the thirteen States, which had hitherto been 
but colonies of a foreign power, with salvos of artillery 
and general rejoicing by the people. But the end was 
not yet. They were a nation on paper, and by profes- 



sion — a nation de jure. But the arbitrament of battle 
was before them, and long years of struggle, of privation, 
of deadly encounter, of hardships, almost without a par- 
allel, of disease and death, lay in their path of progress ; 
and how and when the end was to be, God only knew. 
But to that great Being they clung, throughout all their 
tribulations and trials, with unparalleled Christian confi- 
dence and the most child-like faith and submission. 

It is not for me, to-day, to trace the battles and the 
sieges, the victories and the defeats, the days of elation, 
and the many days almost bordering upon despair which 
fell to the lot of our Revolutionary fathers in that eight 
years' heroic struggle with the most powerful military na- 
tion in the world. They are well known to us all, and from 
our early childhood the historian has almost burned them 
into our memory. Nor need I recount the many causes 
which occasioned sore disaffection on the part of the col- 
onists with the government of Great Britain and led to 
the separation. Nor is it for me to say, that the hand of 
the Almighty was in it all; that has already been said by 
the historian, and I think it not sacrilege to add, that the 
great national events of the first century of the Republic 
can but confirm in all meditative christian minds the 
views of the Historiographer. 

Our fathers were well fitted for hardships ; they were 
schooled in the school of adversity .; puritans in religious 
faith, and primitive in their views of government, they 
could have no fellowship or kindly feeling towards any 
religion that was not purely Theocratic, nor any govern- 
ment of the state in the slightest degree tinged with 
kingly prerogative. They were in a large degree pos- 
sessed of the more homely virtues, but they were un- 
skilled in State-Craft. I speak now of the puritan emi- 
grants of 1620 and their long line of descendants, who 



have so indelibly stamped their character upon the gov- 
ernment, and upon the eleemosynary institutions, both 
public and private, from the Bay of Massachusetts to the 
Golden Gate of the Pacific. 

They had but slight respect for the mere forms and 
ceremonies of political institutions or religious creeds, 
but they were profoundly versed in that faith, which is 
" the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of 
things not seen." Theirs was a religion predicated upon 
a profound conviction of the reasoning faculties, and an 
unwavering faith in Divine realities. 

Almost simultaneously with the erection of the Altar, 
where they could pour forth their hearts to the Deity, 
whom they venerated and loved, they erected the school 
house where their children could receive instruction, such 
as should fit them to become good citizens, and qualify 
them for the responsible duties of administering in due 
time the political affairs of the state. 

In the same year, 1620, there was landed upon the 
coast of Virginia another class of emigrants from Europe, 
of a different type of civilization in many respects. They 
were possessed of many of the virtues of the Puritans, 
but their associations had been more of a patrician char- 
acter. They had more respect for monarchy than the 
Puritans, more given to pleasure; esteeming themselves 
more a governing class, regarding personal labor as 
something derogatory to a gentleman, and holding to 
the idea that capital and labor were distinct properties, 
and that true prosperity consisted in capital owning its 
own laborers, and that chattel labor was for the best inter- 
ests of the state. In a word, that Negro Slavery should 
be the corner stone of the Government. 

Thus these two forms of civilization, starting in the 
same year on this Western continent, proceeded forth in 



their mission of colonization. For two centuries nearly, 
they labored together almost hand in hand. Together 
they leveled the primeval forest ; they planted, and they 
harvested. In the early colonial wars they went forth 
together, and fought the common enemy. They sym- 
pathized in each other's misfortunes, and rejoiced in each 
other's prosperity ; made common cause when Great 
Britain annoyed and harrassed them by inconsiderate 
and unfriendly laws, and sent to each other words of en- 
couragement and cheer when unfriendly foreign legisla- 
tion sought, in any way, to cripple or destroy the enter- 
prise or the industry of any one of the several colonies. 
In this way they went through the War of the Revolu- 
tion ; hailed alike the declaration of American Indepen- 
dence, and together rallied around the flag of their coun- 
try, and bore it aloft in triumph at the close of the eight 
years' controversy. 

After the War of Independence, in the year 1787, del- 
egates from all the States assembled at Philadelphia, to 
do away with the articles of confederation, and to adopt 
a constitution that should meet the requirements of the 
country, and at the same time receive the cordial sanc- 
tion of all the States. 

No abler body of men have ever assembled in this coun- 
try as a deliberative body, than were the delegates who 
met at Philadelphia in the month of May, 1 787, to adopt a 
Federal Constitution. At its head, and the president of 
the convention, was GEORGE WASHINGTON ; among 
the members of that body, in which all the States were 
represented, except Rhode Island, was John Langdon of 
New Hampshire, Elbridge Gerry and Rufus King of 
Massachusetts, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of 
Connecticut, Alexander Hamilton of New York, Benja- 
min Franklin and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, 



Patrick Henry and James Madison of Virginia, and 
Charles Pinckney of South Carolina. 

After the adoption of the Constitution, and the inau- 
guration under it of President Washington, on the 30th of 
April, 1789, the government assumed form and shape, 
and our country's career of prosperity began. . 

It was a most noble spectacle. The world had never 
before seen its like. A free and intelligent people 
choosing their own chief magistrate by a free ballot cast 
by their own hands ; a free people making their own 
laws, through the representatives of their own choosing ; 
such a spectacle seemed hardly a possibility. The 
crowned heads of Europe looked upon it at first with 
derision, and then with dismay. Such a government, 
they reasoned, if a success, would be a standing and per- 
petual menace to every Monarchy of the old world. 

Every Statesman of any note in all Europe prophe- 
sied the early and speedy downfall of the infant Re- 
public. The ardent wish for it was, in most cases, the 
instigator of the prophesy. And still the Republic lived 
and prospered. The people were united and happy ; 
every industry was prosperous; our ships carrying at 
their mastheads the ensign of the Union, were fast multi- 
plying in every foreign port; our commerce was increas- 
ing ; our mercantile interest was advancing; emigration 
of the working people from several of the European na- 
tions was fast pouring in upon us ; our population was 
rapidly on the increase, and new States were settling and 
being added to the original thirteen. The legislatures 
of the several States, where human slavery had no exis- 
tence, fully recognizing the fact that " intelligence was 
the life of liberty," so legislated every year as to bring 
the blessings and the benefits of a free education to the 
children of every hearthstone in the land. 



European prophesy was felt by all to be a failure. 
The new Republic, instead of falling to pieces and 
crumbling to decay, was waxing more vigorous, increasing 
every year in strength and resources, and in both physi- 
cal and moral power and influence was fast excelling 
many of the monarchial powers of the Eastern conti- 
nent. 

The policy of Washington's administration, in its for- 
eign diplomacy, was to cultivate peace with all nations, 
and to enter into entangling alliances with none of them. 
The administrations of Adams and Jefferson, which next 
succeeded, endeavored to rigidly pursue the same policy, 
as being in the line of safe precedent. The administra- 
tions of James Madison which followed that of Jefferson 
was attended with many embarrassments. All Europe, 
almost, was at war. The doors of the " Temple of Janus " 
were flung wide open, and every portion of the continent 
resounded for years with the continuous tramp of armed 
men. Napoleon was in the zenith of his power — with his 
victorious armies he marched through Europe and toppled 
over thrones and dynasties as though they were but play- 
things in his path of progress. Those great nations never 
before had such a " wild waking up " as they were now 
receiving from the conquering legions of this plebeian 
general. England, with the other nations around her, 
became alarmed, and in recruiting her wasted armies 
resorted to measures harrassine to our commerce and 
humiliating to us as a nation. She claimed the right to 
search our vessels and impress by force into her own na- 
tional service such seamen of English descent as she 
claimed had not been naturalized, or were not furnished 
with proper certificates of protection. And it was claimed 
on the part of our government that England's necessities 
oft times led them, while engaged in this, as was claimed, 



illegal search, to the perpetration of the greatest atrocities 
and outrages upon native born, as well as naturalized 
American citizens. A majority of the people of this na- 
tion became indignant at repeated abuses of this charac- 
ter. The war spirit is contagious in its very nature. 
Every vessel landing on our shores from Europe brought 
vivid accounts of battles and sieges, of the clangor of hos- 
tile forces, the thundering of cannon and of victories won. 
There was a strong conservative element in the nation, 
mainly in New England, which vainly endeavored to stem 
the war-tide, and they had an able and influential delega- 
tion in Congress to represent them, and to resist, if pos 
sible, the rising war spirit of the country ; but they were 
overborne and vanquished, mainly by reason of the su- 
perior statesmanship, and wonderfully magic eloquence 
of Henry Clay. Mr. Clay's brilliant speeches gained an 
audience everywhere throughout the country, and his 
burning eloquence rang like the trumpet notes of victory 
in every section of the nation. Says Mr. Clay, in one of 
his impassioned utterances on the subject of right of 
search and impressment, " If Great Britain desires a mark 
by which she can know her own subjects, let her give 
them an earmark. The colors that float from the mast 
head should be the credentials of our seamen." The war 
furor could not be appeased, and on the 18th of June, 
1812, the United States declared war against Great Brit- 
ain. In the light of subsequent events it is apparent now j 
and for a long time has been, that that war had better 
been avoided. It accomplished but little in the way 
of national results, while in the loss of life and in the ex- 
penditure of money it was no exception to all wars. But 
the nation was young and vigorous ; we had been at pro- 
found peace for thirty years. Our mother country, we 
thought, had insulted us, and to use a frontier expression, 



IO 

we were almost " spoiling for a fight." As a nation, we 
were like a spunky boy of sixteen, very much as we were 
when Burke spoke of us while we were yet colonists, "A 
nation still in the gristle and not yet hardened into the 
bone of manhood," but we were brave beyond a question, 
and we were not unwilling to manifest it to the world. 

The war being declared, the nation bore itself manfully 
through the struggle. It raised all the soldiers and sailors 
needed. It organized armies and fleets. It achieved 
most signal and satisfactory successes by sea and by land, 
while it occasionally sustained reverses of no slight char- 
acter, such as are ever incident to war ; and at the end of 
two and a half years from the time of the commencement 
of hostilities, an honorable treaty of peace was gladly 
signed by the Commissioners of both nations. 

No nation ever welcomed with more intense joy the 
cessation of hostilities than did the United States. There 
had been really no principle involved in the contest, and 
could the matter in dispute have been left out to the ar- 
bitrament of some neutral nation, the whole controversy 
between the two countries could have been speedily set- 
tled without the firing of a gun. But that mode of settling 
national controversies was not then in favor, as it is hoped 
it soon may be, for all time to come. 

The war of 1812, as it is called, was, however, of great 
benefit to the nation in one respect, aside from displaying 
the bravery and warlike qualities of our people, in this, 
that the closing of our ports of entry, during hostilities, 
to all foreign importations, both of necessaries and of lux- 
uries, had brought our countrymen to a realizing sense of 
ihe importance of a more diversified industry. Our peo- 
ple had hitherto been almost solely an agricultural people. 
With but few exceptions the manufacturing and the me- 
chanic arts had been neglected, and to such an extent, 



I I 



that we were even dependent upon foreign nations, dur- 
ing the war, for tent blankets necessary for the comfort 
of our soldiers. Our cloths, except those of a coarse fab- 
ric for common wear, were the product of foreign looms. 
For our edge tools we were dependent upon Birmingham 
and Sheffield ; while the artisans of France and Germany 
furnished everything of a fancy nature, within the means 
of our men and women to procure. Besides this, the close 
of the war found our National indebtedness fearfully in- 
creased, and individual indebtedness was bearing down 
upon our people with a heavy weight, and taxes and in- 
terest were eating up all our substance. Such a condi- 
tion of things called for the exercise of the wisest states- 
manship. We had then no Lowells, no Manchesters, no 
Holyokes. The power loom had not then been invented, 
our unexampled water privileges were unimproved, except 
here and there a rude saw mill, or still ruder carding mill, 
where our coarse wool was carded into rolls, when some 
thrifty house-wife found time to run her hand spinning 
wheel. 

The government itself was forced to exercise the most 
niggardly economy in order to defray the most parsimo- 
nious running expenses, and pay the interest on the pub- 
lic debt ; while almost all the money the people could 
command, went to pay for the foreign importation of 
necessaries which they were unable to procure at home. 
In this condition of things, the result of a sound political 
economy seemed to indicate, that the first step, in the way 
of legislation for national and individual relief, would be 
to impose such a tax upon foreign importations as should 
induce our citizens, such as had capital at their command, 
to expend it in the erection of mills and manufactories by 
the side of our numerous waterfalls, in order to build up 
a more diversified industry, and manufacture many of the 



12 

articles and goods necessary for our home consumption. 
But this result was not arrived at in Conoress until after 
long debate. It finally resulted in the enactment of a law- 
denominated the tariff of 1 8 1 6. This law worked so well, 
that eight years after, in 1824, the tariff on imports was 
largely increased, and the beneficial results of such legis- 
lation began to speedily develop themselves. Many of 
my hearers can remember well how hope revived, after 
the enactment of the tariff law of 1824 ; up to that time 
the failures and reverses in the manufacturing industry 
of the country had demonstrated to the entire satisfaction 
of the American people that without the aid of the gov- 
ernment we were helpless as against foreign importations. 
England, with her Birminghams, her Manchesters and 
her Sheffields, could flood us with her manufactured pro- 
ducts, and drain our country of all her money, the life 
blood of a nation's energy and prosperity. We could con- 
tend with her satisfactorily enough on the field of battle ; 
Saratoga and York^own, Lake Erie and New Orleans 
and many other fields of fierce conflict, were historic wit- 
nesses for us in that behalf. But in the field of peaceful 
industry, we were confessedly no match for her. The 
protecting arm of government became indispensable for 
the safety of the labor of the country, and to guard and 
protect it against a relentless, wealthy, foreign competi- 
tion. 

Without adequate protection, the inequality was too 
much for us, but when that protection was vouchsafed, 
capital at once entered the field, and from that time, with 
the American people, dates the age of industry, the age of 
improvements, the age of enterprise in industrial pursuits 
the age of such a prosperity as the world has never wit- 
nessed in the history of any other nation. 

At no time in the history of this country was there such 



universal prosperity in every section of it as was witnessed 
for the ten years next following the enactment of the 
tariff of 1824. The people, everywhere within our bor- 
ders were amply employed, with most remunerative wages; 
our farms were everywhere improved and increasing in 
value ; manufacturing villages multiplied ; the busy hum 
of industry answered back the echoes of every waterfall ; 
towns sprang up as if by magic ; our cities were enlarged 
and beautified ; our lakes and large rivers teeming with 
a busy commerce ; our sails whitening every foreign 
as well as domestic port ; our foreign commerce, both in 
exports and in imports, increasing to an extent beyond 
the wildest imagination of our statesmen ; the great pub- 
lic debt of the nation extinguished; and the private in- 
debtedness of our people reduced to a minimum in pro- 
portion to our population, never before known. Such 
were the results, flowing from laws enacted by the Amer- 
ican Congress for the protection of American Industry, 
and I appeal to every intelligent man before me and to 
the history of our common countr) for the entire truth of 
these statements. 

Successful as we now were, in the field of peaceful in- 
dustry, beholden to no nation for any of the necessaries, 
and I was about to say, for any of the luxuries of life 
even, the United States were at last a truly free and in- 
dependent nation. The war c f the Revolution freed them 
from a political thraldom, while years of peace in the 
field, of successful and protected industry, had established 
her manufacturing and mechanical pursuits on a firm 
foundation, and beyond the reach of foreign or unfriendly 
competition. 

From 181 5 to 1846 our country was in a state of pro- 
found peace with all the world. For thirty-one years, 
war, with its barbarities and its vices, came not to vex us, 



'4 

and the only foes we had, if any, were those of our own 
household. It was a long era of national peace and pros- 
perity. The country had increased in wealth and popu- 
lation beyond the sanguine predictions of our most de- 
voted partisans. The NewEngland States had becomeone 
vast hive of industry. The inventive power of her people 
had set in motion every variety of labor saving machinery, 
and the field, the mill, and the shop of the machinist, fur- 
nished ample as well as remunerative employment to all 
classes of her citizens. The middle states of the Union 
were equally devoted to agriculture, mining and the pur- 
suits of commerce. The great West, where is now the 
seat of empire, was then but the mere outposts, as it were, 
of our rapidly advancing civilization. While the South, 
by reason of the increased value imparted to the cotton 
crop through the invention of the cotton gin, by Eli Whit- 
ney of Connecticut, became wholly engrossed in the cul- 
tivation of cotton and the raising- of negro slaves. Her 
cotton supplied the markets of the world, and its increased 
consumption everywhere was an inducement for the plant- 
ers to seek to enlarge, if possible, the area of its produc- 
tion. This occasioned an increased demand for slave 
labor, and the slave population of the country was largely 
on the increase. For many years this great national 
shame attracted but little attention ; it was silently suffered 
to increase, and it experienced the protection of national 
legislation. 

The first overt act for its extension, and which called 
forth some opposition from the non-slaveholding States, 
was on the occasion of the admission of Missouri to the 
Union in 1 820. This was effected through what was known 
as the " Missouri compromise," whereby it was solemnly 
enacted, that in all the territory ceded to us by France, 
lying north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes, " slavery 



15 

shall be and is hereby forever prohibited." This was re- 
garded then by all parties as forever establishing by sol- 
emn legislation the legal bounds of slavery on the north. 

In 1843, ar, d for a little time previous thereto, the sub- 
ject of the annexation of Texas, formerly a portion of the 
republic of Mexico, but which a few years before, by a 
revolt gotten up by adventurous Americans who had mi- 
grated thither, claimed to be independent of Mexico, was 
agitated through the country. It soon became the favor- 
ite hobby of the slave power. The free North feebly re- 
monstrated, but the whole country was drunk with pros- 
perity, and really cared but little about it. The presiden- 
tial election of 1844 m a measure turned upon this ques- 
tion, especially in the Southern States, and notwithstand- 
ing Henry Clay was the presidential candidate of the 
whig party, he was defeated, and a Southern man in the 
person of James K. Polk of Tennessee, was elected. In 
the year following, in the month of June, 1845, tne an ~ 
nexation of Texas was effected, and thus a slaveholdingr 
country, as large as New England, was made part and 
parcel of the American Union. 

This bold feat of the slave power led to a war with 
Mexico, as was plainly predicted by many that it would. 
On the 1 ith of May, 1846, Congress enacted that, " by the 
act of the republic of Mexico a state of war exists between 
that government and the United States." 

It is seldom that so flagrant a lie ever finds a lodgment 
in a legislative enactment ; but it met the approval of the 
party majority then in the ascendant in the country and 
received the sanction of President Polk. The war was of 
but short duration, and a treaty of peace was concluded 
between the two governments in the month of February, 
1848. 

It is difficult at this day to read or even to think of that 



i6 

war but with feelings of deep humiliation and profound 
mortification. The United States were then a powerful, 
strong, defiant nation. Mexico, on the other hand, was 
weak, enfeebled by internal violence, and distracted by 
domestic dissension. It was a war, in which, as a nation, 
we could neither win honor, glory or renown. However 
much individual valor might display itself, and call forth 
the huzzas of the multitude, it was nevertheless a war, 
wherein defeat, in even a single conflict, would be a dis- 
grace, and victory could win for us no encomiums. It was 
a war, waged simply and solely in the interest of the par- 
tisans of human slavery. The territory of Mexico was 
all free territory. It was polluted nowhere by the footsteps 
of servitude. That Republic, hardly more than half civ- 
ilized, as civilization is defined by the most enlightened 
nations, had, notwithstanding, many years previous there- 
to, abolished slavery within all her borders ; and whenever 
the poor, panting fleeing slave from the bloodhounds and 
lash of his master, sought protection upon the soil of 
Mexico, he was met there by no infamous fugitive slave 
law to seize him and brutally return him to bondage and 
perhaps to death. And hence the war. Some future 
historian will not fail to strip the veil of hypocritical pre- 
tence from this American outrage upon poor, enfeebled, 
distracted Mexico, and let in the sunlight of God's justice 
upon that legislation of infamy and national shame. 

The poor Mexicans were defeated upon every battle- 
field, and we finally dictated to them the terms of a peace 
within their very capital, as it were, and " demanded '•' of 
them the surrender to us of New Mexico and California 
to recompense us for their degradation. These terms 
being- acceded to, the war closec', and our victorious armies 
were withdrawn from Mexican soil. 

But a day of reckoning to this nation was yet to come ; 



i7 

events were hastening ; but like the guests at Belshazzar's 
feast, we little heeded and less suspected the coming 
calamity. 

The Mexican war and its consequent accumulation of 
territory to this nation, and the attempt which followed to 
make such new accumulation slave territory, aroused to 
a fearful degree and extent the emotions and passions of 
the people. They were sought to be appeased, and in a 
measure were so for a short period of time, by the mem- 
orable compromise act of 1850. But very soon the ex- 
citement broke out afresh. The slave holding states 
sought every opportunity to obtrude the slavery agi- 
tation upon the country. They seemed to take especial 
pleasure in insulting the moral sentiment of the North 
upon this question, and the repeated attempts to enforce 
in the free states the provisions of the fugitive slave law, 
as it was called, kept the whole country in a feverish state 
of excitement, and added fuel to the growing hostility to 
further slave aggrandizement. 

These blundering acts of folly on their part, culminated 
at last, in the attempt that was made in 1853, to repeal 
so much of the act of 1820, which I have before alluded 
to, as dedicated to " freedom forever " all the territory 
acquired by our Louisiana purchase, which lay north of 
36 and 30'. 

The debate in Congress on this subject was of the most 
exciting character. It was of long duration. Every 
prominent man in Congress from the North took part in 
it. The press was aroused; and daily and weekly, the 
fervid utterances of such men as Seward and Sumner, of 
Ben Wade and Thomas Corwin, and a host of others, 
were spread before the people. Nor was the pulpit false 
to its trust. Religion and patriotism both combined to 
rouse the people and prevent if possible the consumma- 



tion of the giant wrong. But the slave power was tri- 
umphant in the country. They had in their complete 
control every department of the Government, Executive, 
Legislative and Judicial. Franklin Pierce was President, 
Roger B. Taney was Chief Justice, and a large majority 
in both House and Senate were as docile and obedient to 
the requirements of the South, as were ever plantation 
slaves. 

The repeal of the " Missouri compromise " was effected 
in May 1854. Not very long after this repeal came the 
famous Dred Scott decision, in the interest of slavery, 
rendered by Chief Justice Taney, and it was about this 
time also, in May 1856, that Charles Sumner, the dis- 
tinguished Republican Senator from Massachusetts, was 
stricken down by a Southern assassin, and left for dead 
upon the floor of the Senate. 

From the time of the annexation of Texas in 1845, to 
the election of Mr. Buchanan as President of the United 
States over John C. Fremont in 1856, a period of eleven 
years, there had been a constant succession of triumphs 
on the side of the slave power in this country ; outrage 
succeeded outrage, and every fresh aggression by the 
slaveholders was but the prelude to some new act of 
violence. 

The repeal of the Missouri compromise was one of the 
first acts in the series of pro-slavery outrages which fell 
upon the free states like the clap of a thunder bolt, and 
aroused from its long reverie the slumbering conscience 
of the North. Almost immediately upon its repeal, came 
the struggle to determine, whether the great and fertile 
territory of Kansas should be bond or free. It was a 
great prize for either section to acquire ; all the power of 
the government was openly enlisted upon the side of 
slavery, and slave holding emigration thither was en- 



19 

couraged to its utmost by all the partisans of human 
bondage in the southern states or elsewhere. The black 
stream was pouring in with fearful rapidity. The free 
states, seeing the danger, and fearing lest this'black pall 
should overspread all the virgin soil of our newly ac- 
quired possessions, awoke fully to the magnitude of the 
occasion, and with all the ardor of knightly bravery 
entered the contest and valiantly contended for the prize. 

How vivid in the memory of most of us are the bar- 
barities of those border ruffians, whose mission it was to 
murder and to burn, and in any and every way to crush 
out free labor on those fertile and far western prairies ! 
Even now it seems almost like a troubled dream. Many 
a peaceful, industrious northern emigrant to Kansas was 
coolly murdered. Many a free state habitation was 
burned over the heads of its inmates. The town of 
Lawrence, mainly settled by industrious emigrants from 
Massachusetts, was burned down by these ruffian 
marauders ; rebuilt, and then burned down again. In the 
meantime repeated outrages of this character and those 
of a worse and more brutal nature, had most thoroughly 
aroused the people of the free states, and a settled de- 
termination had seized upon them to no longer endure 
such indignities, but to resist to the death the introduction 
of slavery into Kansas. They had seen thus far, what 
were its fruits, and resolving to no longer act upon the 
defensive, they as quietly determined to yield to no 
menace, but to resist force with force. 

Kansas, during a three years unequal struggle, was 
baptized in blood. Many a retiring peaceful young man, 
whose nature was far enough from war and violence, left 
these eastern and northern states, to settle down to 
industrious pursuits, a life-long resident of Kansas, but 
who, through the stirring agencies of ruffian barbarities, 



20 

became crystalized into a hero of no ordinary mould. 
John Brown of Ossawatomie, he " whose soul," whether 
in victory or defeat from 1861 to, '65, was with our armies, 
" marching on," was educated to the puritan hero he 
became, by reason of the wrongs and barbarities he 
suffered, while a peaceful free state laborer upon the soil 
of Kansas. A man of truth, a man of honor, a christian 
hero after the best type of the New Testament, a man 
in whom there was no guile ; Virginia had then no better 
use for a man possessing such qualities but to hang him. 
But how were the feelings, the convictions, the 
resolves of the people of the free states roused into 
activity and settled determination by this state murder 
under the forms of law! As a stroke of policy, no worse 
blunder, to call it by no milder name, has seldom if ever 
been committed by any state or nation. 

The two distinguishing types of civilization before 
alluded to in this address, were now fast marshaling for 
a conflict for the mastery ; whether it was to be a conflict 
by the peaceful ballot, or a deadly conflict of arms, human 
prophecy could not unveil ; but that it was fast coming, 
every sign in the political horizon plainly demonstrated. 
How mysteriously God works ! "He causeth the wrath 
of man to praise Him." How to eradicate human slavery 
from our country, and eliminate it entirely from our 
country's constitution, and those of the several states, was 
a question too vast and deep for the comprehension of 
our wisest statesmen. Its effects upon our system of 
government were fearful. It was a gangrene eating out 
the living tissues of national life. It was a naked, stand- 
ing lie upon our very declaration of National Indepen- 
ence. Even the very framers of our national constitution 
were not insensible to or ignorant of its dangers, but 
they were powerless to avert it, or even to arrest its 



21 



growth. Washington feared lest it might be the cause 
and the occasion of sectional division, and he warned his 
countrymen of such danger in his farewell address. 
Jefferson deprecated its existence, and said in contemplat- 
ing it, he " trembled for his country when he remembered 
that God was just." 

That it should ever have been allowed a foothold in 
our constitution, was, by all christian statesmen, felt to 
be both a sin and shane which some time or other would 
have to be repented of by the nation. This sin at last 
ripened into violence and crime, and then sprang forth 
the opportunity ; and who will say that the hand of the 
Almighty was not in it ? 

In the midst of all these stirring events in Kansas and 
in the country at large, in the year i860 again occurred 
our quadrennial presidential election. 

The question of slavery had so agitated the country 
that it became in a great measure a political contest for 
sectional supremacy. Happily, and as would seem, God 
had so willed it, the pro-slavery councils of the country 
were divided. The political campaign of that year, was 
fierce, bitter, unrelenting. The anti-slavery conscience 
of the country was aroused. The puritan element in the 
days of Milton exhibited to the world no more decided 
type of a " coolness of judgment and immutability of 
purpose," than did the friends of free Kansas, free soil, 
and free men, during that memorable political contest. 

On the morning after the election, it was announced to 
the world that every northern state but one had cast its 
vote for the nominee of the Chicago convention, and that 
by a large majority of the electoral college, he would be 
declared president of the nation. From that day, through 
several successive years, years of alternate hope and 
fear, the great name of ABRAHAM LINCOLN became 



22 



the prominent and central figure in the galaxy of our 
nation's defenders. 

That election was a memorable one in our political 
annals. For the first time in the history of the Republic, 
the free North had asserted its prerogative, and cast its 
influence and its vote upon the side of freedom. Its 
vast majorities for Mr. Lincoln indicated with unwavering 
certainty the earnestness and the strength of their con- 
victions. The South had for many years been planting 
the seeds of violence ; they had been traducing our 
peaceable northern people in the most opprobrious man- 
ner ; they had hunted Wm. Lloyd Garrison through the 
streets of Baltimore ; they had instigated mob violence 
in the streets of our northern cities ; they had murder- 
ously shot Elijah P. Lovejoy for the crime of being an 
anti-slavery man, at the door of his own house at Alton, 
and by means of a southern oligarchy, and through the 
machinery of party, they had become the ruling political 
power of the nation. 

For all these crimes and barbarities, a day of reckon- 
ing was yet to come. 

No more indignities from slave holders, no more ag- 
gressions or insults from the slave power, was the pre- 
vailing sentiment in the free and indignantly awakened 
North. They were thoroughly in earnest now, and they 
were thereafter to take no steps backward. They knew 
their power and they felt it. The scenes in Kansas had 
taught peaceful northern people familiarity with the rifle 
and the revolver, and they were almost impatient for the 
fray. 

Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated president of the nation 
March 4, 1861. On the 12th of April following, the 
telegraph clicked to every part of the nation, that southern 
hatred to the country and its flag was seeking its revenge, 



23 

and was then pouring forth iron hail from many a cannon 
into a peaceful American fort, erected by the American 
nation in the harbor of Charleston, for the protection of 
the city and the state against any foreign invasion. The 
bombardment continued into the next day, when the 
feeble garrison, being inadequate for such a contest, were 
obliged to lower the flag and surrender the fort. 

This meant war. The " era of compromise and 
diplomacy " was now ended, and in their place was sub- 
stituted in the hearts of every loyal citizen of the out- 
raged North a settled and sullen determination to fio-ht. 
And what an uprising was there in this free North as the 
news was heralded from city to city and from state to 
state. A million flags were unfurled to the sunshine and 
the breeze in a single day, as the nation's response to the 
indignity cast upon the national standard. Strong men's 
faces were pale, but not with fear ; political party lines 
were obliterated ; a common danger made us all for the 
time common friends ; our country first and party after- 
wards, was the spontaneous outburst of every patriotic 
heart. We had never before realized how dear to us all 
was our country and our country's flag, that symbol of its 
unity and its power, until we saw that country humiliated 
and its ensign trailing in defeat. 

President Lincoln's proclamation, sent forth to the 
world on the morning of the 15th of April 1861, calling 
upon the nation for seventy-five thousand men, was re- 
ceived with the utmost enthusiasm ; and the response to 
it was as cheerful as it was prompt and patriotic. 

How well we remember that chilly morning, early in 
the month of the following May, when our Woodstock 
Light Infantry with full ranks, under their captain, Wash- 
burn, left us to muster at Rutland, and go forth from 
thence with the first Vermont regiment to the seat of 



24 

• 

war. Many there with moistened eyes and quivering lips, 
bade good bye to husbands, sons and brothers, to neigh- 
bors and friends, not knowing when or where they 
might meet again. They all felt that that was no holiday 
excursion, but a stern call of country to military duty, 
to sacrifice, and perhaps to death. 

No one anticipated the duiation of the contest, no one 
believed at first that we were entering upon a deathlike 
struggle of four years duration for the very existence of 
the government. No one could forecast the extent or 
magnitude of the rebellion or the vast amount of blood 
and treasure which its extinguishment would cost the 
nation. Where existed the imagination, in the early 
period of the war, wild enough to predict that ere it 
should close, over two millions and a half of enlisted able 
bodied men would be called into the national service ? 
Who would have believed then that ere the war should 
end, our own state of Vermont, small in extent of terri- 
tory, sparse in population, and wanting in many of the 
springs and resources tributary to wealth and local en- 
terprise, would send forth from her own borders, as her 
quota to the national contribution, thirty-four thousand 
enlisted men to aid in the suppression of the wild, fero- 
cious rebellion of the slave power ? 

Who thought in 1861, that within four years from that 
time one hundred and eighty thousand colored men would 
have been clothed in the national uniform, and been found 
fighting heroically under the national banner — the same 
banner which for so many years had been but the symbol 
of their own degradation ? And who could have believed, 
nay, where was the imagination brilliant enough to con- 
ceive, that long ere the war should close, the shackles 
should dissolve from four millions of slaves, and at its 



25 

close they should take their position as freemen under 
the ensign of the Republic ? 

I have neither the time nor the inclination now to enter 
upon a recital of the many battles and sieges, the fierce 
conflicts on sea as well as on land, the animosities, and, 
on one side, too often, the barbarities, the outgrowth, as 
I trust and nothing more, of sectional hatred, for a limited 
period, the gradual, but sure advancement of the national 
armies, and the gradual extinguishment of the gigantic 
rebellion. 

I take pleasure rather in recording the valor and the 
heroism of both armies, north as well as south ; for are 
we not all countrymen of the same nation? And is not 
the same flag now waving over us all ? Both armies 
were as brave as brave men ever are ; and when they 
met in the shock of battle, it was Greek meeting Greek. 
It was no feeble encounter, and if I have read correctly 
the history of this great rebellion, each army found in the 
other a foeman worthy of his steel. And I record the 
evidence of every historian of the conflict, that braver 
men are nowhere to be found, than our own northern 
soldiers met, face to face, on many a field of mortal com- 
bat. Let Antietam, and Cedar Creek, Mission Ridge and 
Gettysburg, Pittsburg Landing and Spottsylvania, Vicks- 
burg and the Wilderness, and many other a bloody field 
bear witness also. 

It is estimated that the loss of life on the Union side 
was no less than three hundred thousand men, and that the 
losses on the side of the rebellion were equally great, 
making a total of six hundred thousand, saying nothing 
about the vast number of disabled men now left to us as 
mementoes of the terrible strife. What a national sacri- 
fice as an atonement in part for a great national crime ! 
In every southern state, lay the mouldering remains of 



26 

many a northern youth, who bravely died in defence of 
flag and country. In every northern grave yard, repose 
the wasted, maimed and mutilated victims of this terrible 
war. What suffering and anguish it brought to many a 
mourning family ! How many happy households were 
made desolate by the announcement that the bright eyed 
youth, the father, son or brother would return no more 
forever. And last of all, the great crowning calamity, in 
the midst of victory and when joy reigned supreme in 
all loyal hearts, for the close of the war, and for a country 
saved, how was a whole nation flung into such paroxysms 
of grief and dismay, as were never before witnessed, when 
the loved and honored chief of the republic was stricken 
down by one of the nation's assassins ! Was there ever 
before such a bereaved people ? The minute guns, the 
tolling bells, the vast funeral processions, whole cities 
draped in mourning, a great nation in tears ! From every 
pulpit was heard the voice of lamentation, and the great 
heart of the people was overcome with profound sorrow. 

President Lincoln, with all his nobleness by nature, and 
his intellectual superiority, possessed also the tenderness 
of a woman and the simplicity of a child. In the midst 
of all the pressing cares of state, he writes the following 
graceful and touching letter to a widowed mother in the 
city of Boston : 

" Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 21, 1864. 

" Dear Madam . I have been shown in the files of the 
War Department a statement of the Adjutant General 
of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons 
who have died gloriously on the field of battle. ' I feel 
how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which 
should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so 
overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to 
you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of 



^7 

the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly 
Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and 
leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and 
lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have 
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 
" Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

" Abraham Lincoln." 
" To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass." 

In April, 1865, our county emerged from this great war 
of Western civilization, victorious over all her enemies. 
The flae which fell at Fort Sumter had been restored over 
every fortress, every State ; everywhere over all our 
broad land, more loved, more honored, more revered 
than ever before. Freedom's great mission in the hand 
of God had been accomplished. The Puritan type of 
civilization was in the ascendant, and the United States 
were now truly a Free Nation. Not a slave within her 
borders. The sacrifice had been great, but great also 
was the reward. 

And now in this year of Centennial Jubilee, comes the 
nation's triumph in the arts of Peace. In that city where 
was first given to the world the immortal declaration of 
Freedom, have been erected vast edifices of strength and 
of beauty, wherein the nations of the world may each 
make exhibition of their superiority in the products of 
skilled labor and all useful arts and inventions. It is 
a sublime spectacle. The nations of the earth peaceably 
arrayed in friendly competition. It begins to look as 
though the long promised epoch was fast arriving when 
universal peace should prevail in the world, and the 
nations of the earth should learn war no more. And this 
is the outlook at the close of the first hundred years of 
our nation's existence. 

If time would permit, it would be pleasant here to in- 



28 

dulge in a little pardonable pride in reviewing our coun- 
try's growth and prosperity during its first century. How, 
from being a few feeble colonies in 1776, of barely three 
millions of people, fringed along on our Atlantic coast, 
for over a thousand miles, while westerly stretched the 
vast unknown region, then untrodden by the feet of man, 
we have become, as denominated by the London Times, 
one " great colossal Republic," extending from ocean to 
ocean, with a population of forty-four millions, all gov- 
erned by the same laws, all protected by the same flag. 
How our commerce, expanding from mere nothing, now 
whitens every sea upon the globe. How in Agriculture, 
in Manufacturing and the Mechanic arts, in the three 
combined, we already lead the nations of the earth. How 
labor is everywhere protected and honored, and the 
laborer is the peer of every man in the land, however 
exalted. How the inventive genius of the country has 
achieved immortal triumphs in the production of so much 
labor saving machinery. How that electricity was 
brought into subjection by our Franklin. How the cotton 
gin was the invention of our Whitney. How the steam 
engine was first applied to locomotion by our Fulton. 
How that electro-magnetism was made subservient to 
man's use in the electric telegraph, by our Morse. How 
the American reaper and mowing machine have added to 
the profit as well as the ease of man's industry, and how 
the sewing machine has contributed more to the relief 
and comfort of our country women than any invention in 
all the ages of the past. 

These are a portion of the nation's contributions to the 
nation's glory. They constitute in a measure some offset 
to the nation's shame — the crime of slavery, whose great 
barbarities we have been considering. 

It seemed proper, on an occasion like this, to brie' 1 1 



2 9 

allude to the more prominent political events, which have 
shaped our country's destiny during the first century of 
its existence. As a nation, we are no longer an experi- 
ment. We have had our days of trial and our days of 
hope ; but from the first, our history has been one of 
national progress, unparalleled by that of any other 
nation. In agriculture, in manufacturing and the mechanic 
arts, in every department of material prosperity, the 
United States will favorably compare with any of the 
nations of the old world. 

A word or two in conclusion. The great corner stone 
of our prosperity as a free people consists in a great 
measure in the freedom of Religious belief and the 
universal diffusion of Education and intelligence amono- 
the whole people. A free school and an open Bible is 
the shibboleth of our Freedom. It has been so in the 
past, it will continue to be so in the future. Let the 
people guard them well ; let no sectarianism of religious 
belief enter our public schools. Let religion be taught 
in our churches and in the homes of our people. Let a 
useful, practical education be taught in all our schools. 
If necessary, let laws be enacted that shall compel the 
attendance of all our youth until a certain age upon our 
public schools, that all her citizens may be men of intel- 
ligence, and capable of choosing their own rulers ; for 
where the people are self governing, there should pre 
vail, for the protection of the state, a sound morality and 
universal intelligence. 

If the American people shall well protect and cherish 
these safeguards of a free state, our country's duration 
shall be limitless, and generations yet unborn shall be- 
comingly celebrate, all over this Western continent, future 
centennials of American Independence. 



CE 



NTENNIAL ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE CITIZENS OF WOODSTOCK, VT., AND VICINITY, 



ON THE 



FOURTH OF JULY, 1876. 



By CHARLES P. MARSH. 



Beach, Barnard * Co.. Printers, 98 Randolph Street, Chicago, Ills. 



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